River tour

Three young women, two from Belguim and one from Holland, appear at the hotel one afternoon. They are all three doing humaitarian work (as are many other young Europeans) in Guatemala for a year, the two Belgians at an orphanage in Tecun Uman.  The Dutch woman is in Xela. They all speak beautiful english, in addition to beautiful spanish. We five ask Alex about a tour of the river, and he lines up a captain and a boat for the next day.

Two small boys ride on the bow of the lancha, warning the captain of unseen snags. We motor up the river for about 30 minutes, and into a small creek. The river smells and looks like our Northeast Cape Fear River in North Carolina, except for the mangrove roots growing from high above the high tide line. We feel right at home! It's quiet, except for the birds, and there are lots of birds.









I can easily see the tide line on these roots. We see many ibis, herons, kingfishers, some small, dancing shore birds, flying fish with four eyes and lots of scavengers I can't identify. We hear a loud bird in the trees, sounds vaguely like a woodpecker, but my spanish is definately not good enough to ask about the birds! The young women have no clue about birds.





















We passed a couple of other boats, fishermen, some with small nets, some with hand-tossed lines. Some boats had motors, but most were hand paddled, like this one. The current appears to be not too strong.


There is no other traffic, or sounds to remind us of humans, and we soon turn into a creek that feels like another century!

 Does the captain look vaguely familiar?  Alex confirms, with a laugh when we return, that the captain is his padre! El capitano's hat got caught on a low-hanging limb, and even though we saved it, it was wet.  When we headed directly into the late afternoon sun, I gave him my hat to shield his eyes.